Rural India and knowledge Management ofRural Entrepreneurs

Abstract: Knowledge is not restricted to formal level of

education; it is a resource of human mind, which if utilized can

generate value addition to the organization and to the society as

a whole. Knowledge relates to all the capital owned by the

people: knowhow & expertise, competencies, market experience

which if managed properly can turn human capital into an

intellectual capital. Influx of people from rural sector to urban

sector has always remained a major problem but most of those who

stayed back to their native place has not only succeeded in

creating sustainable development among them but also succeeded in

generating jobs among themselves. This present paper tries to

explore that for managing knowledge attaining formal level of

education is not required, rather it is the daily experience

which forced the people of rural India to emerge out as a

successful entrepreneur, made them capable enough to invent

innovative cost effective techniques to solve their daily

problems. This present paper tries to establish a link between

entrepreneurship and knowledge of daily life. The purpose of this

paper is to explore the executive process of rural people which

is acquisition, creation, packaging, and application or reuse of

knowledge.

INTRODUCTION:“Education ends in class but knowledge ends with life” as the

proverb goes is the lesson which every individual achieves in

life. We human being is surrounded with knowledge which is

nothing but experiences from daily life. Life is a summation of

hurdles and rewards, there can never be a great teacher in life

other than problem/hurdles. We face problems and every time we

try to find out the solution /way out from it. The need of

managing the experience from past events comes in order to solve

the present hurdles.

The migration of people from rural India to urban India has

always remained one of the major problems. India has been divided

into two segment rural bharat and urban India. This flow of

people from rural to urban has always been a major cause/reason

for unemployment and underemployment in India. But those who

stayed back tried to solve their daily problem by properly

channelizing their everyday experience into a concert output.

Problem faced by the people of rural India is immeasurable, but

due to the trouble taken by the people they have naturally found

out some technique/solution to their problem. Before proceeding

into our core area, we must understand what knowledge management

is all about. Knowledge is a capital if managed properly can give

huge return. Management means synchronizing things /events

systematically into a smooth outcome. Let us take into

consideration the definition given by Henri Fayol “To manage is

to forecast and to plan, to organize, to command to coordinate

and to control”

Now, how can knowledge be managed, knowledge relates to all the

capital owned by the people: know-how & expertise,, competencies,

market experiences etc. managing knowledge properly can turn

human capital into an intellectual capital. Knowledge management

enables people’s collaboration and connects them to expertise.

The ability to quickly find a subject matter expert and get the

answer to a question or assistance in solving a problem is a

priority in knowledge management. In Knowledge Management

literature, knowledge is mainly categorized as either explicit or

tacit.

Explicit: - Information or knowledge that is set out in tangible

form.

Implicit: - Information or knowledge that is not set out in

tangible form but could be made explicit.

Tacit: - Information or knowledge that one would have extreme

difficulty operationally setting out in tangible form.

The main concern of knowledge management is value addition based

on the experience, expertise know-how and uncompressing attitude

to change the daily problems. Now as explained earlier that there

can never be a great teacher other than problems in daily life.

People in Rural India faces problem and news challenges every

day. Poverty among the people of rural India is the main concern

for the Govt. of India. There has never been equal distribution

of income and wealth between rural and urban sector. The fear of

unemployment and underemployment has become a prevailing and

everlasting problem among the rural youths. This motivates a

majority chunk of population from rural youth to move from rural

to urban in search of jobs but those who remained back and made

an impact on the development of rural Bharat and in turn to the

economy is the man theme of this paper.

Innovation is the product of creative ideas, but giving it a

marketable shape has many hurdles to overcome. The main and the

most important ones are the lack of finance, lack of technical

know-how and poverty. Knowledge management can be explained as

the combination of market & strategy, structure & process,

knowledge & system where people & motivation is the main fulcrum

to all these.

Now, let us divide the Knowledge management into two parts that

is strategic knowledge management and operational knowledge

management.

Strategic knowledge management is an area where people &

motivation links with market & strategy and structure ad process.

Operational knowledge management is where people & motivation

links knowledge & system. But the people of rural India has found

out a different concept which is nowhere related to these the new

concept is the problem management through managing the experience

of daily life utilizing common sense.

People of rural India lack formal knowledge base but they have

become competent enough to solve this life problem synchronizing

the knowledge earned from daily life. People of rural India have

not only succeeded in creating sustainable development among them

but also succeeded in generating jobs among themselves. Rural

entrepreneurship is that entrepreneurship which ensure value

addition to rural area engaging largely rural human resource

creating sustainable development as well as sustainable means of

income was the major challenge in front of rural entrepreneurs.

Though Govt. have tried out various schemes for generating income

in the rural area such initiative from the Government has not

stopped people from moving out of villages to towns and cities.

This is because such initiative is not on their own capable of

enabling people to earn adequately and changes their condition.

There has to be some committed enterprising individual or a group

of people who should be capable of making use of the Government

policies and schemes for the betterment of rural people.

Entrepreneurship purposefully is utmost for the development of

the rural areas. Innovation is the product of new ideas, some

give shape to it but there is many link between giving innovation

a structure and applying the same into market, this is where the

importance of an entrepreneur comes, who can manage knowledge

into innovation.

Technological Innovations in Rural India:

Innovation and competitiveness have a dynamic, mutual

relationship. Innovation thrives in a competitive environment and

in turn, plays a key role in the achievement of such an

environment. Innovation generates economic value, new jobs in the

economy and cultures of entrepreneurship. Any kind of innovation

either large or small starts with small attempts of solving the

problems in the different ways. In our country, plenty of

innovations exist in the rural segment as more than one third of

its population resides in villages and people over there face a

new challenges everyday so they have their own mindset to resolve

the problems. Innovation is the alternate way to do the task

differently or we can say that it is the unconventional ways to

solve problems. An effort has been made to study such kind of

innovations and main objective is to spread the spirit of Indian

innovation worldwide. Also in our country there is a massive

problem of unemployment in rural as well in urban areas, a study

has been made on their implementation to solve the problems and

to find the way out. The popular attention towards rural

invention couldn‘t come at a better time for a nation that

increasingly values creativity but is still given to rote

learning at schools and colleges. Even our roadside mechanics are

more pragmatic and practical than those who have obtained

Engineering degrees from premier institutions. At present many

foreign companies are approaching India for some new ideas. It is

a matter of pride that Indians have inborn capability of

scientific thinking. In short this is the art of holistic

thinking, an unbound, resilient creativity and of improvisation

and rapid prototyping under severe constraints. Inadequate

distribution and service networks prevent necessary goods and

services from being readily available to those who most need

them, owing to that lack, creativeness steps in.

The idea of innovation has become encrusted by many myths. One

myth is that it is all about new products. That is not

necessarily so. New products are, of course, important but not

the entire picture. When innovation is the basic way of doing

things, it finds ways to innovate not just in products, but also

in functions, logistics, business models, and processes. It

basically manages to seep itself into all aspects of life and one

tends to view life in a different way. Another myth is that

innovation is only for geniuses. In a country like India you can

view

a different innovation almost the same distance as the dialect

changes. In India the term is “necessity is the mother of all

innovations” (instead of inventions). True innovation matters for

the present, not for centuries hence. Innovation is an ever

changing exercise.

Innovation in rural India: Genesis of Jugaad.

In India more than 70 percent of its population resides in

villages. In rural India people face a new challenge everyday so

they have their own mindset to resolve the problems; hence they

have precious resource of innovation. They are habitual to face

new obstacles in day-to-day life; every impediment thus became an

opportunity to create something new. Further the necessity to use

their competitive advantage and their ability to struggle for

survival also makes them innovators. People in rural India have

an ability to utilize almost all the things which any one can

throw away easily and this concept of optimum utilization of the

available resources is very well known as Jugaad. This Jugaad can

almost make anything possible. Also Jugaad is for everyone

without regard to race creed or color; it does not know any

geographical boundaries. The mindset of individuals in rural

India is that ―where there is Jugaad there is a way‖ every time

they have an alternate way to do the things anyhow. Individuals

in rural India would like to do in their own way as per according

to their customized application requirement for a particular task

and this diversification leads towards the innovation. Moreover a

Jugaad technology is the suitable word for such kind of

innovations in rural India.

Some examples around are as follows:

Dabbawala: - Residents of Mumbai are very well familiar with

Dabbawalas. It is an example of excellent supply chain management

without any paperwork. It is an example of Jugaad process of food

delivery.

Dial a Motor: - This system enables the user to switch ON or OFF

an electrical motor with the use of Mobile phones. This mobile

operated motor control system is very common in rural India to

operate the motor pump from any distant location for irrigation

purpose.

Lassi Maker Jugaad: - In Punjab and Haryana the people in

villages often use the top loading washing machines for churning

curd and hence making Lassi (Butter-milk) and Butter form curd.

And the Jugaad is called LASSI-P.

Head-Load Reducer: - Khimjibhai Kanadia, a retired schoolteacher

has created an innovative device that has two extended supporting

rods from a circular disk that is put on the head to hold the

vessel. The mechanism shifts part of the head load to shoulders

and thus saves the neck from stress injury

LPG Operated Iron (Press): - The unavailability of power to major

area has given rise to many innovations and Gas (LPG) Operated

Iron (Press). An automatic lighter is fitted to the device for

ignition and the inlet of the gas is through the copper pipe. The

flow of the gas can be automatically regulated through the knob.

It is useful in power cuts for tailors and washer men in rural

areas.

Motor Bike Powered Irrigation System:-This Innovative Irrigation

system is powered by a functional motor bike that is on the spot

converted to the prime-mover for a pump. This pump is often in

used open channels and ponds to deliver water for irrigation or

other purposes.

Scooter-Powered Flour Mill: - This scooter powered flour mill is

designed by Jehangir Painter from Jalgaon, Maharashtra; now made

famous by the film ‘3 Idiots’. It is a perfect example of Jugaad.

Jugaad for Espresso Coffee: - Pressure cooker turned into an

espresso coffee machine with Jugaad modifications in an

innovative way. This is a low cost solution with same results.

Jugaad Boat for Rescue Operations: - This is the best utilization

of waste bottles by assembling a Jugaad boat. This Jugaad boat

can be utilized in flood areas for rescue operations etc.

Let us consider the case of Rural shores. Rural shores mission

was to establish one BPO center in each of the 500 rural

districts in India providing livelihood to 10000 rural youth.

Despite its social mission Rural shores was well on its way

towards achieving financial self-sufficiency. Rural Shores is an

initiative for inclusive growth it wanted the world to know that

with a little bit of hand holding it was possible for youth from

rural India to match the service excellence of their urban

counterpart and they were very much successful in their

objectives though they faced initial hiccups later on they

emerged as one of the great BPO units.

What CEO’s can learn from rural Indian entrepreneurs?

One, seek opportunity in adversity. Never look at a glass as half

empty, but as half full. Reframe every challenge.

Two, do more with less. That‘s about both reducing costs and raw

materials, also adding more value. It‘s not just about cheaper

products, but also adding tremendous value. It‘s not about poor

quality.

Three, think and act flexibly. Do not be attached to any business

model. Think like IBM, which redid its values.

Four, keep it simple. Sometimes, companies lose touch with this

idea, and tend to over engineer products. Simplicity also applies

to customer interactions, and of course product and

organizational goals.

Five, include the margin. Often times, in the West, companies

look at marginal segments as low income and not profitable. Think

of Wal-Mart, now innovating by setting up money centers in

stores, several households are under banked.

Six, follow your heart. This is where you'll find empathy,

passion, intuition, all important qualities. Yes, they‘re less

about ―knowledge. But now we‘re entering a correction era after

the Great Recession. By following your heart, you‘ll find a

larger purpose for your company and products, more employee

engagement, more loyalty to your brand.

Some important questions:

What role can innovation play to develop India?

Innovation is the only way to sustain India's growth. There are

about 200 trouble-torn districts in India. Instead of declaring a

war on them, their capabilities should be channelized in the

right direction. The youth of these places can be mentored to

choose the right track and build a great society. India cannot

take pride on a growth rate which is just benefiting 20 per cent

of the total population. There should be an inclusive growth

accommodating the entire society. Many of these rural innovations

can have a profound impact on our society.

How can we popularize for rural innovation and create awareness?

Do the national media, All India Radio and Doordarshan; have any

program to showcase India's innovative people? How many media

organizations come forward to spread the message that there is an

awaken India that can take on the world with the assistance of

the government and private players? There should be a combined

and sustained effort. How many school text books have a chapter

on innovations by any one of our innovators? Instead of teaching

about pre-Independence heroes, we should revise our textbooks to

teach relevant and intelligent ideas that can fuel innovation at

a young age. We should stop imitating and mimicking the West. Our

techpedia initiative has a database of over 350,000 projects from

college students which could be developed into products and

useful services. We have made an attempt to map the minds of the

young and brilliant technologists.

What should the government do?

The government has neglected innovation. We spend crores

(millions) on the National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (NREGA)

to offer 250 million people employment for 100 days. This is a

national shame as these poor people are forced to do menial jobs

like digging the earth and breaking stones. Besides this, the

scheme is being run in the most developed states. Many among

these workers are very creative -- there are artists, mechanics

and sculptors among them. Should this be the right approach? They

should be trained and promoted to exhibit their talent. This

great human resource should be made to work intelligently. About

99 per cent of them are very talented people. They should be

given the freedom to develop their skills or take part in

activities helping other entrepreneurs. There are so many

talented singers, dancer and actors who know the traditional art

and dance forms. These can be aggregated into a rich database of

art and culture and showcased online. This will not only preserve

our rich cultural heritage but also help them financially. There

are several ways of promoting our talent.

Which states account for the maximum number of innovations and

from which category of people?

We have found the maximum number of innovations in Gujarat. This

is also because we are based in Gujarat. Kerala, Bihar and

Karnataka also have a good number of innovators. A good number of

innovations have come from artisans, farmers, mechanics...and

women. Women have been very innovative. Since they have been

traditionally not allowed to experiment, they have built products

and solutions in food processing, childcare, etc. Despite the

constraints, women have excelled. Women are very creative and

talented but there are no opportunities to support their ideas. A

simple traditional medicine is rubbing nutmeg powder on the navel

of babies. Many of the traditional ideas are easy to implement,

and have no ill effects. But has our healthcare policy ever

looked at these aspects? Our children are losing out on

traditional knowledge. There is no importance to values today.

One of the reasons is a total disconnect between the grandparents

and children.

Let’s study some cases where people from rural India

have given practical shape to their innovations:

N Sakthimainthan 

(Hand operated water lifting pump) Tamil Nadu: -

Sakthimainthan built his hand operated water pump in response to

a dearth of available pumps that could be afforded by small

farmers. He built five prototypes over a period of fifteen years

before finally perfecting his design. The resulting water-lifting

device is operated by the continuously rotating a handle. It is

simple in design and has a high discharge at low cost compared to

the motorized pumps and conventional hand pumps. The pump has

discharge of 20,000 lph at 0.75 m head. The unit has also been

tested by TNAU, Coimbatore and improved by CMERI Durgapur. It is

useful device for drainage as well.

Radhey Shyam Sharma (Bullock operated sprayer)

Madhya Pradesh, Bhanjibhai Mathukia, Gujarat: -

The bullock operated sprayer is pulled by a pair of bullocks and

gets the drive from the ground through a gear box and belt pulley

system. When the operator shifts the lever to a higher gear, the

frequency of strokes of the pump increases as a result of which

more pressure develops in the container. The spray fluid, thus,

atomizes into fine droplets with a wider swath. This sprayer

considerably reduces time requirement as compared to manual

spraying and also the drudgery and health hazards involved in

manual spraying. It has 18 nozzles, spaced at a distance of 35 cm

and can cover 3.5 acre/h.

M.Nagarajan (Lemoncutter)

Tamil Nadu:-

A small workshop owner from Uslampathy village in Tamilnadu, M

Nagarajan has developed an innovative technology for cutting lime

into small pieces in bulk quantity. This technology offers a

great value proposition for the pickle manufacturing companies.

The pickle industry suffers with a big problem of inefficiency in

its operations due to low degree of atomization e.g. cutting of

fruits is done manually. The second big problem, the industry

faces is short-supply of labour during peak seasons, which limits

the capacity. It is a novel machine in terms of its cost

effectiveness, efficiency, drudgery reduction for women, safety

considerations and transmission system.

Gopal Bhise (Bicycle Weeder)

Maharashtra:-

Bhise has fixed a rod with a blade at the end, to an assembly

consisting of only the front wheel and the handle of a bicycle.

He has named the assembly as 'Krishiraja', and claims it to be

extremely efficient in removing weeds from hard land. It is very

useful device for ploughing inter culture operation in very small

farm plots, gardens and kitchen gardens. One can cover 0.08

hectare in one hour

Raghav Gowda(Milking machine)

Karnataka:-

Finding skilled labour for milking a small herd of cows is a

problem faced by many farmers. But using

Gopal Bhise (Bicycle Weeder)

Maharashtra:-

Bhise has fixed a rod with a blade at the end, to an assembly

consisting of only the front wheel and the handle of a bicycle.

He has named the assembly as 'Krishiraja', and claims it to be

extremely efficient in removing weeds from hard land. It is very

useful device for ploughing inter culture operation in very small

farm plots, gardens and kitchen gardens. One can cover 0.08

hectare in one hour

SwayambhooSharma,MadanlalKumawat,ChandanAgarwal

(Modified hand pump with tap and attachment for filling animal

trough)Rajasthan /Delhi:-

Lack of surface water sources and falling water table has made

availability of clean drinking water a major problem in

Rajasthan. For human beings, the need gets addressed to some

extent but for animals this need is much less appreciated.

Swayambhoo Sharma came up with an interesting solution to address

the drinking water needs of animals. He developed an arrangement

such that every time people pump water for their use, 20 per cent

of pumped water will directly go to fill animal water trough.

Since most people feel lazy in filling drinking water trough for

stray animals, this innovations solves this problem by a kind of

tax at source. Another problem faced in hand pumps is that a

single person finds it very difficult to pump and at the same

drink water (without a vessel with him/her). Chandan, then a

first year student at IIMA came out with an idea of storing water

in the body of the hand pump so that having pumped, one could use

a tap and drink water like any other tap. Yusuf Khan and Madan

Lal Kumawat, two other innovators combined the idea of Chandan

and Swayambhoo Sharma and developed a hybrid model.

Raghav Gowda(Milking machine)

Karnataka:-

Finding skilled labour for milking a small herd of cows is a

problem faced by many farmers. But using machines for milking is

a luxury which only a large farm or a dairy house can afford.

Raghava decided to develop some method of milking, which would be

affordable for all farmers. The result: an easy to operate and

low cost milking machine that can milk 1.5-2 liters of milk per

minute. The machine can be used to remove all the milk from the

udder. The cow feels as if it is being suckled and does not

experience any pain.

ImliToshi (Bamboolathemachine)

Nagaland:-

Bamboo needs to be stripped off its outer covering for developing

smooth surface to make interior decoration items and utility

articles like cups, pen stands, etc. Doing the job manually is

time consuming and laborious. The machine developed by Toshi can

do all the operations like removing the outer knots, smoothening

the surface, internal/external carving and finishing. The machine

has soft touch joystick controlled operating system, which

facilitates precision in operation. The finished bamboo can be

used to make bamboo pet bottles. This bottle has the potential to

replace the plastics and tin bottles and cans. The bamboo pet

bottles can be made with a capacity of 1 lit, lit, 200 ml etc

BirenSingh (ImprovedMechanizedLoom)

Manipur:-

This innovative mechanized shuttle looms simulates the working

principles of traditional Manipuri shuttle loom, except that the

new machine runs fully automatic with the help of a half-horse

power motor. The output of the machine is 25-50 times more than

the traditional shuttle loom, and almost any other power loom.

The innovative machine can weave 3-4 fabric per hour whereas the

traditional could hardly make 1-2 fabric in a day. Except for the

change of bobbin, the machine doesn't require any manpower.

Deepak Bharali (Extra-Weft Insertion for Handloom Design) 

Assam:-

Conventionally, the task of the insertion of weft threads needed to

make a variety of designs is done manually by tying knots, which is

cumbersome and time consuming. The thread is also wasted in connecting

one motif to another. Deepak's innovative device makes designs in one

third of the time required by the traditional way of making designs.

The device consists of three components; base frame, magnet bearing

shaft and a specially designed bobbin. These components can be fitted

to any handloom Jacquard machine. The attachment facilitates the

Jacquard loom to perform automatic selection and lifting of warp

threads for design making

CONCLUSION:

At last the only thing which can be said is that there can be

numerous theories and practices given by eminent researchers

regarding Knowledge management, but in practical scenario the

thing is bit different. Even people who lack formal level of

education has succeeded in managing their knowledge to earn their

living. The people of rural India have built their own concepts

and theories channelizing their bitter experience of facing daily

problem. But if they are supported with formal level of education

along with strong backup from Government, the people of rural

India can come up as the promising and energetic section of

population of India.

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NAME: - ABHISEK SAHA ROY

E-MAIL: - asroy.am@gmail.com

PHONE NUMBER: - +919577830316/+919804281034